In order to fully enjoy Elite, you need a well equipped ship. I’ve started to play just three weeks ago, I’m not an Alpha or Beta tester, so excuse me for trying to help people in their first couple of days in a very pacifist, cowardly way – so they can earn some money, buy & equip the ship(s) of their choice, and then decide what to do next.
So this might as well be titled „How to properly equip & arm yourself without a single shot, very quickly, in 3-4 easy steps“.
STEP 1:
Go Solo.
Strip all fighting stuff from your Sidewinder. You dont need it. In this stage, Elite is in an Easy mode. Very rarely you will be attacked, and when that happens just follow the escape path (blue circle) or do the logoffsky (tolerated in Solo) with esc/savetomainmeny/start. So get rid of lasers & shield. Where the shield generator was, purchase one more 2E Cargo rack for 4 tonnes. Now you have 8 tonnes.
Do the pizza delivery runs in the sector (follow the missions from the bulletin board in a station. "Bring us 7 tones of fish..." etc). EDIT This is how you find where the stuff is sold: use this tool http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk Go to Search, in Search Filter click Commodity, then Station Selling, choose commodity, type in your current location, select 25 ly range, small ship, and then search). Carry stuff around, learn how to land & take off, navigate etc. Your aim is to make 52.720 for Hauler, and just some more for the insurance. You can make it in a day (intensive playing). By now you will have enough for a Hauler, and now the plot thickens.
STEP 2: (second day of playing, introducing Rare trade)
Now you own a Hauler. You’ll be surprised what it can do, and how much faster you’ll progress. Again, strip all lasers and shields, max out cargo racks and buy a fuel scoop. You’ll need it for the thing you’ll be doing for a week – Rares Run.
Search the forums for Rares and you’ll see it fully covered, no need for me to go into details here. For starters, take the smallest one round first. Let’s say it’s Zaonce, Lave, Leesti, Diso, Orrere - then fly aaaallll the way to Witchhaul (you sell all the stuff here and start bying new ones), Fujin, 39 Tauri, Zeessze, George Pantazis – then from George's Zamka station fly the long route to Zaonce, sell all, and start buying for the next round. Zaonce is in the loop not because it has only 1 tone of rares, but because it's the most advanced station in the loop for upgrading your ship.
Tip: don’t wait for the station to respawn more rares up to a quota. (beware, station will respawn only to it’s quota, and will not spawn more until you sell that item) Buy whatever the amount there is and go on. You need to complete the circles quickly, you’ll earn more than to wait for half an hour or more for full 12 tones to appear.
With just this first run, you’ll have enough to upgrade your Frame Shift Drive. Get the most expensive one, A class, it will cut your travel time enormously by taking the longer jumps. With just two-three runs you will have enough for a Cobra.
STEP 3: (fourth day of playing)
Guess what? Strip all the … OK, OK, you know the drill. Stripped & cargo upgraded Cobra will have 56 cargo tones, and switch scanner for fuel scoops. Now do the first run, but wait a bit at the stations for respawn a bit more. Because your first finished run will allow you to maximize FS Drive, and then you can make the longer Rare Runs. You’ll earn a million per two hours easily. Now do that for a day or two, make a couple of mills, because now you’ve reached the crossroads.
THE CROSSROADS
From this point on, you can stop being a pacifist, arm your Cobra and go into the wilderness. Do a run or two to make more upgrades and make yourself a formidable fighting ship. By now you've learned how to make a good & quick buck when needed. (buy me a drink when we meet at the station bar) Go into Open play and blaze your path to glory.
But if you caught a money bug and want to make more, we come to
STEP 4:
Buy a Lacon Type 6. It’s the first proper trading ship, and a great one. Fully stripped & upgraded for trade (with fuel scoops, you’ll need it for the first run) it has 112 tones. I admit, the first thing I did was make an extensive rare run, filling up all of 112 tones, and made several millions there, just in that run. Lasted for a day, ‘cause I’ve waited for stations to respawn the rares to the full. But it was worth it – with just that run, I’ve maxed out FS Drive and all, and started to trade like a proper trader should – in commodities.
With Type 6, you’ll earn much more doing the normal trading than with rares. Sell your fuel scoop and buy gas as a normal person. You'll only waste time hanging around the Sun, and it's a dangerous place to hang when carrying 112 tones of gold in a bathtub. You will not be hopping across the galaxy anymore, just 1-2 jumps back and forth. Upon finding a good round trip (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76081 or http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/ ) you can make 1-2 millions per hour. Do the trading, make a buck for Type 7 (I’m there after three weeks of total play from Step 0 – casual play after work) – it will more then double the income from Type 6, and you strive for Type 9. It’s more than 500 tones of cargo, and it will make 5-7 millions per hour. Now you can buy whatever you want, fully equip it and go Open.
I have never fired a shot so far (never owned a weapon), never had a shield, and was never killed. Run.
Happy start, greedy/cautious Commanders!
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE!
Never ever, NEVER EVER fly or buy the next ship with just enough credits to do so. Always mind the insurance. You need at least 2x of that amount, plus 2x the full cargo’s worth in the bank to move to the next one.
So this might as well be titled „How to properly equip & arm yourself without a single shot, very quickly, in 3-4 easy steps“.
STEP 1:
Go Solo.
Strip all fighting stuff from your Sidewinder. You dont need it. In this stage, Elite is in an Easy mode. Very rarely you will be attacked, and when that happens just follow the escape path (blue circle) or do the logoffsky (tolerated in Solo) with esc/savetomainmeny/start. So get rid of lasers & shield. Where the shield generator was, purchase one more 2E Cargo rack for 4 tonnes. Now you have 8 tonnes.
Do the pizza delivery runs in the sector (follow the missions from the bulletin board in a station. "Bring us 7 tones of fish..." etc). EDIT This is how you find where the stuff is sold: use this tool http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk Go to Search, in Search Filter click Commodity, then Station Selling, choose commodity, type in your current location, select 25 ly range, small ship, and then search). Carry stuff around, learn how to land & take off, navigate etc. Your aim is to make 52.720 for Hauler, and just some more for the insurance. You can make it in a day (intensive playing). By now you will have enough for a Hauler, and now the plot thickens.
STEP 2: (second day of playing, introducing Rare trade)
Now you own a Hauler. You’ll be surprised what it can do, and how much faster you’ll progress. Again, strip all lasers and shields, max out cargo racks and buy a fuel scoop. You’ll need it for the thing you’ll be doing for a week – Rares Run.
Search the forums for Rares and you’ll see it fully covered, no need for me to go into details here. For starters, take the smallest one round first. Let’s say it’s Zaonce, Lave, Leesti, Diso, Orrere - then fly aaaallll the way to Witchhaul (you sell all the stuff here and start bying new ones), Fujin, 39 Tauri, Zeessze, George Pantazis – then from George's Zamka station fly the long route to Zaonce, sell all, and start buying for the next round. Zaonce is in the loop not because it has only 1 tone of rares, but because it's the most advanced station in the loop for upgrading your ship.
Tip: don’t wait for the station to respawn more rares up to a quota. (beware, station will respawn only to it’s quota, and will not spawn more until you sell that item) Buy whatever the amount there is and go on. You need to complete the circles quickly, you’ll earn more than to wait for half an hour or more for full 12 tones to appear.
With just this first run, you’ll have enough to upgrade your Frame Shift Drive. Get the most expensive one, A class, it will cut your travel time enormously by taking the longer jumps. With just two-three runs you will have enough for a Cobra.
STEP 3: (fourth day of playing)
Guess what? Strip all the … OK, OK, you know the drill. Stripped & cargo upgraded Cobra will have 56 cargo tones, and switch scanner for fuel scoops. Now do the first run, but wait a bit at the stations for respawn a bit more. Because your first finished run will allow you to maximize FS Drive, and then you can make the longer Rare Runs. You’ll earn a million per two hours easily. Now do that for a day or two, make a couple of mills, because now you’ve reached the crossroads.
THE CROSSROADS
From this point on, you can stop being a pacifist, arm your Cobra and go into the wilderness. Do a run or two to make more upgrades and make yourself a formidable fighting ship. By now you've learned how to make a good & quick buck when needed. (buy me a drink when we meet at the station bar) Go into Open play and blaze your path to glory.
But if you caught a money bug and want to make more, we come to
STEP 4:
Buy a Lacon Type 6. It’s the first proper trading ship, and a great one. Fully stripped & upgraded for trade (with fuel scoops, you’ll need it for the first run) it has 112 tones. I admit, the first thing I did was make an extensive rare run, filling up all of 112 tones, and made several millions there, just in that run. Lasted for a day, ‘cause I’ve waited for stations to respawn the rares to the full. But it was worth it – with just that run, I’ve maxed out FS Drive and all, and started to trade like a proper trader should – in commodities.
With Type 6, you’ll earn much more doing the normal trading than with rares. Sell your fuel scoop and buy gas as a normal person. You'll only waste time hanging around the Sun, and it's a dangerous place to hang when carrying 112 tones of gold in a bathtub. You will not be hopping across the galaxy anymore, just 1-2 jumps back and forth. Upon finding a good round trip (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76081 or http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/ ) you can make 1-2 millions per hour. Do the trading, make a buck for Type 7 (I’m there after three weeks of total play from Step 0 – casual play after work) – it will more then double the income from Type 6, and you strive for Type 9. It’s more than 500 tones of cargo, and it will make 5-7 millions per hour. Now you can buy whatever you want, fully equip it and go Open.
I have never fired a shot so far (never owned a weapon), never had a shield, and was never killed. Run.
Happy start, greedy/cautious Commanders!
VERY IMPORTANT NOTE!
Never ever, NEVER EVER fly or buy the next ship with just enough credits to do so. Always mind the insurance. You need at least 2x of that amount, plus 2x the full cargo’s worth in the bank to move to the next one.
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